The last couple of days I have been ravenous in my pursuit to rid us of clutter and get down to only the things we will need to take with us. My biggest project: receipts and old bills. We (by we I mean I) have boxes and boxes (and piles and file folders) full of receipts and bills that date back to before Heath and I got our first apt...yep, that means 10 years of paper build up! Ugh...can you believe we have been moving that stuff around with us?! In all my pack ratted-ness I have kept every single bill and receipt, so seriously, boxes! To go along with my anal-retentive crazy compulsiveness, I also have an obsessive need to go through every single one (paper and receipt, not just box) before I toss it out or shred it. I would also like to add that I feel the need to shred every bill or receipt or notice from any company that has an address on it accompanying some sort of account number. These things are 10 years old! Who cares?! Well, I do. Ugh!! While I have paper bags full of bills, receipts, and shredded paper (anyone need any hamster bedding?) I still have lots more to go. At least I have noticed that as I continue I am being more careless with the receipts and just glancing through them...maybe I will really let loose after another box or two and just start grabbing handfuls to toss out without even looking! What a wild Friday night that would be...oh, wait...it's Sunday =)
In the beginning, I was having a fit of nostalgia going through all the early bank statements and receipts. It was a walk down memory lane...oh, I remember that restaurant or when we took that trip, when I went to the pet store to buy the things for our first dog and just random shopping trips. I have (had) a pretty decent memory, so even little things like grocery store receipts and movie stubs can bring back pretty vivid memories of the exact event. These fall into the category of "really hard to throw out because they are like written pictures". It was hard to get rid of the "memories" from our college days, but I can't keep carrying around stuff like that forever. I did notice when going through more recent receipts I do not have this case of nostalgia...it seems to have happened around the time I became a mommy ;) The receipts did not conjure up the same amount of memories. There are some, trip receipts or receipts from Ikea when Tricia and I would spend the day there as if we were in a museum or a zoo! But grocery store receipts, mall receipts, they do nothing for me. So it's easy to toss them out. Thank goodness I take a hundred times more pictures now than I did back then. I can look back on the visuals to jog my memory. I hope that later I don't feel like I threw out too many memories...old receipts really are like a chronological scrapbook of your life, everyday and otherwise. You can see the things that you did day to day, which are the hardest to scrapbook because these are the things you have to make yourself realize the importance of so you can record them. What a brain training exercise it is!
We also have a large pile of no longer needed items growing in the garage in preparation for a yard sale. Seeing as how this stuff is taking up my side of the garage (where my car is usually parked), I can totally see me getting frustrated with having all that junk there and deciding to freecycle it just so I can park my car in the garage again! Free strollers anyone?
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